


Why the Hell She Love Me

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: It's so hard, watching from the sidelines.But she can have this, she can have Kelley.
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Hope Solo
Kudos: 12





	Why the Hell She Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt**   
>  _anything o'solo for old time's sake... can't believe it's really been four years already_

Finally, Kelley’s home.

Hope looks down at the younger woman, sprawled face down in their bed, snoring in a way that is somehow sweet despite everything, and takes a deep, relieved breath.

Hope stretches out her hand, steady as she holds it out, as she carefully, softly, traces the sharp line of Kelley’s jaw with the tip of a finger. smiling a little as she feels the woman move into her touch in her sleep–just the slightest. And it’s enough.

She feels her whole body relax as she carefully sits on the edge of the bed, not wanting to wake the exhausted woman, but needing to be close. To feel the soothing comfort of Kelley’s body against her own. And Kelley shifts, hitching her knee up toward her chest and somehow burying herself even deeper into the mattress, into the comforter she hadn’t even had the energy to pull down before collapsing.

And Hope exhales, letting go of that last little bit of ache that she’s held tight inside her chest since that final match. Since she’d watched Kelley rise and then fall, still, onto the green pitch an ocean away in France.

She’s here. She’s okay.

Everything is almost right again.

—

They’d fought before Kelley left for camp.

They’d been fighting a lot in the months leading up to the Cup, actually.

It had hurt, watching Kelley prepare for the tournament. Hope hadn’t expected that.

It had hurt, remembering the last time. How Canada had been a journey they had been on together. They’d lived together, trained together. They’d watched film on other teams with each other, Kelley’s feet in the goalkeeper’s lap, the dog snoring on his favorite rug over by the fridge.

They’ve lived and breathed every hope and dream together. Because it wasn’t just the World Cup.

It was _their_ World Cup.

But this time, though, the very thought of France, it cut her open. Broke into the wounds she hadn’t completely stitched over yet.

She’d thought there’d been a chance.

She’d taken her punishment. She’d done her penance, made her amends.

The alcohol, it was gone. The anger, something she worked on with her therapist twice every week, her religion of healing, of forgiveness. She’d had her shoulder fixed and worked tirelessly to get her body back into match fitness.

Into National Team fitness. Cup fitness. Starting XI fitness.

But none of that had mattered, Hope began to realize. As every camp came and went and her phone never rang.

As she watched Kelley pack her bags, dropped her off at the airport and picked her up again.

Every trip, every match closer to the day the final roster for France would be released, the truth became clearer.

It was over.

Her career.

It was over.

Kelley had tried to help. Could have, too, if Hope had let her. Could have soothed away the tears, could have offered the warm comfort of her understanding, her constant unyielding love.

But, Hope had figured, she didn’t have a reason to try and be better any longer. There was nothing she was fighting for any more. Not as far as she could see.

She’d been wrong, of course.

—

When she left, Hope missed her. An ache that bit deeper than all the others, all the little cuts and scars from every grudge she carried, every wound she’d bore.

Missing Kelley was bigger than all the hurts that had come before, and she realized how much time she’d wasted carrying her anger everywhere she went.

“I’m sorry,” she’d whispered in the messages she left when she knew the other woman couldn’t–wouldn’t–pick up. “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”

Their paths crossed in Paris, only just the once. Kelley with her sunglasses perched atop her auburn hair and Hope, a stack of notes in hand as she hurried across the street to the studio for a taping. And she’d been struck dumb then, in the middle of the street, just looking at the woman she loved.

“Kelley–I’m,” Hope began, but Kelley put a hand on her arm. “I got your messages,” she whispered, and her thumb drew soft circles over Hope’s bare skin. “It’s okay, okay?”

And it’s not. It’s so not, and Hope has to credit all those hours in therapy for knowing this. But Kelley is giving them both the gift of forgiveness, and Hope’s heart practically breaks with love at the gesture.

She wanted to kiss her. Right there on the _Rue de whatever_ where they’ve found each other again. But that’s not their style. That’s not the agreement they came to so long ago when Hope finally came to her senses and let the younger woman love her. When she finally gave herself permission to love Kelley back. Not in public, not in uniform, not on anyone’s time but their own.

“I’ve got to–,” Hope gestured weakly at the building across the street, and felt Kelley’s thumb again. Their secret goodbye.

“Call tonight,” Kelley had whispered. “I promise I’ll pick up.”

—

The ache was still there, Hope realized. It would probably never completely go away, but settle into her toes and her shoulders and her fingertips as the years went on. But it did lessen, overcome by waves of pride and love as she watched Kelley and her old team make their run.

Every great cross sent in by the woman she loved cut back a few of the wiry thorns that had seemed to grow uninhibited in her soul an, for once, they didn’t grow back.

Thailand, Chile, Sweden.

Spain and France and England.

She kept her cool on-screen but inside her heart was screaming, and it wasn’t the heat coloring her cheeks as she broke down the plays, the tactics, the mentality on the British broadcast.

It was love.

—

Her heart stopped when she saw Kelley fall. And thankfully, her co-anchors took the lead, filling in the space with their thoughts on how the game had gone so far as Hope watched the replay over and over and over again.

Finally, when Kelley was on her feet, she took a breath again and–the camera closing in on Kelley’s face, her reaction to the ref–laughed out loud.

“You see that?” Hope smiled toward the camera on the anchor desk. “Tomorrow morning, when the Netherlands start to break down why they lost, they’re going to be looking at this moment. Right here.”

And maybe it wasn’t entirely professional. But Hope suddenly couldn’t find it in herself to care. Because Kelley was standing and glowering and so beautifully mad, and maybe the score was still zero-zero, but Hope knew–she knew–it wasn’t going to be long now.

France was Kelley’s Cup, and she was bringing it home.

—

She asked if she should come home. Pull an Ertz and skip everything after the parade, but Hope had told her no. Had told her to take her time, take the trip out to LA, enjoy every single moment of her victory.

This was her moment, and Hope wanted her to experience it, all of it.

Of course she’d worried–mostly about her liver and her head–and of course she’d checked in on her, even from all those states away.

But she didn’t regret telling Kelley to stay, to enjoy the ride.

Because Hope knew, knew with every fiber of her being, Kelley’s last stop was home.

—

She can’t help herself. Can’t help but touch her now that she’s here. Now that she’s home.

Hope’s hand moves up to stroke the soft hair–streaked with sun–gathered there, still pulled back, as if Kelley had forgotten to undo it, or just let it go this once.

“Hey,” the younger woman rasps softly, blinking up at her, “you weren’t here when I got home?” And she sounds exhausted, just the slightest bit confused.

And Hope cups her cheek, her palm just soft there against Kelley’s tanned skin. She’d been out running an errand, maybe the most important one she’s ever done. The little box, it’s already burning a hole in her pocket, and it takes everything within her to not to pull it out right now, this second, and ask Kelley to be hers.

But somehow Hope manages, and leans forward to kiss her forehead, careful of the slight bruise that’s already fading away.

“You’re early,” she whispers, and gives Kelley a shy smile. “Your flight wasn’t supposed to get in until this afternoon.”

The younger woman’s hand comes up to her jaw and Hope leans into the soft touch.

“It was,” Kelley whispers, looking up at her with bright eyes, “but I changed it. I missed you.”

And Hope feels her heart settle at last.

Everything is going to be all right.


End file.
